Greetings, last evening I posted the
Home Cinema 5030 UB projector review. As usual, more work to be done, lots of images to still add, but let me tell you the story that you'll find told inside the HC5030UB projector review as well.
This isn't about the projector, just a story about what it took to get the HC5030UB review up...
We received both the Pro Cinema 6030 UB and the Home Cinema 5030 UB on the same day. This isn't unusual.
We consider these projectors to be identical, except of course for the known differences relating to anamorphic lens, warranty and black vs. white casing, none of which have impact on picture quality. Thus we use both to create one review, and then create a mini-review of the other.
Epson HC5030UB Projector - $2599 with 2 pair of 3D glasses. 2400 lumens, and great warranty
We normally post the full review as the Home version, not the Pro, simply because it's the more popular, and more visible version. Images are taken with both projectors.
Both are ISF and THX. So the plan is to measure both, to see how close they are to each other, brightness wise, but only calibrate one. No point in my spending extra to have Mike calibrate both, dropping in his settings for one should work just fine for the other, give or take variations from lamp to lamp. And as you and I know, there will be similar minor shifts in color as the lamp ages.
OK.
The main problem is that Mike's calibration gear died, or rather started doing weird stuff. He calibrated one of them, brought it back and said that it looks terrible, that his gear died, and that he just ordered a new rig and software.
That set us back some time, of course. His new metering and software arrived last Friday, and he picked up the 6030UB and recalibrated it. He brought it back Saturday, and in the 4 days since, I've spent at well more than 20 hours (easily - probably 10 of football alone). It is for that reason, that as of today (Wednesday), many of the images in the review are from the older Home Cinema 5020 UB. Lisa has the batch of images reshot with the new calibration settings. She will have them processed so that I can replace 5020 UB, and bad 6030 UB images tomorrow.
Mike still has to circle back to the Home Cinema 5030 UB for measurement, but in the meantime I've got him working on calibrating the Pro Cinema 4030 so I can finish that review, and the Optoma HD131XE projector as well. The second set of readings are not important, but I'll update the review when I get them, so that we show both sets. Sony's coming to visit today, hopefully with a projector (probably a VW1100 or HW55ES - I'm hoping for the HW55ES). Mike I should note is heading up next week to Napa CA to drink wine, dine and relax for 3 weeks, so I have to get everything calibrated that I plan to write about through Thanksgiving holiday, late November, thus the pile up and the Sony visit.
Meantime since only the Pro Cinema gets calibrated this year, you'll notice that all the images from movies are Pro Cinema images because it's calibrated (you'll see that in the file names). All the HDTV images though are taken using the Home Cinema 5030 UB since I shot those "right out of the box" except for adjusting contrast and brightness as needed (it didn't need), and lowering the green a little, plus playing with different Super-resolution setings.
I'll have Lisa assemble a mini-review for the Pro Cinema 6030 UB as well, based on all my findings. We do things this way because if we do one review for both (very logical way of doing things) then search engines like google dilute the value of each model, and we don't rank well. And that means folks can't find our reviews. Thus, a full review and a mini.
That's the story, about this Home Cinema 5030 UB review.
One more thing. If all goes well, the new site will finally go live this weekend. (60% - 40%) Fingers crossed. Thanks -art
